JDK and JRE Watch

Latest in a regular
series from Java SE-land is a roundup of goodies from the last week.

You probably saw that Java SE 6 Update
13 shipped last week. Despite some wild
headlines, this was bugfix release
with some important
security issues addressed. And a notable fix of this
bug in the draggable
applets feature, a sign that this feature is getting more of
a workout.

Next Java SE 6 Update
is 14, in early access, which most notably includes the Garbage
First collector to play with.

This more predictable garbage collector is one of the features of the
upcoming JDK 7, of which Martin
did a nice overview, including the modularity work of
Jigsaw (see
API doc here).

As is the multi-language support: John posted a patched
Java compiler and Netbeans for people to try out dynamic
types, method
handles, and invokedynamic
features of the DaVinci
Machine Project which are due to be put into JDK 7 builds for JavaOne.

Project Coin
closed its slot today. Joe
has been posting regular
updates on the proposals for small changes to the Java language for
this project. It's a much quicker way to get up to speed than the lively
mailing list.

In other language news, there's an update to the Checker
framework, which is a great way to try out the current
state of the Annotations
on Java types JSR 308.

Alex posted an update
on the bugs fixed in the Swing App Framework, and
is looking for input
from Swing developers. SAF
is due to go into JDK
7 late August.